Astronomers discover closest black hole to earth

Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i reveals first dormant, stellar-mass black hole in our cosmic backyard

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY (AURA)

 

IMAGE: ASTRONOMERS USING THE INTERNATIONAL GEMINI OBSERVATORY, OPERATED BY NSF’S NOIRLAB, HAVE DISCOVERED THE CLOSEST-KNOWN BLACK HOLE TO EARTH. THIS IS THE FIRST UNAMBIGUOUS DETECTION OF A DORMANT STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE IN THE MILKY WAY. ITS CLOSE PROXIMITY TO EARTH, A MERE 1600 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY, OFFERS AN INTRIGUING TARGET OF STUDY TO ADVANCE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE EVOLUTION OF BINARY SYSTEMS. view more 

CREDIT: INTERNATIONAL GEMINI OBSERVATORY/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/J. DA SILVA/SPACEENGINE/M. ZAMANI

Astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systems.

Black holes are the most extreme objects in the Universe. Supermassive versions of these unimaginably dense objects likely reside at the centers of all large galaxies. Stellar-mass black holes — which weigh approximately five to 100 times the mass of the Sun — are much more common, with an estimated 100 million in the Milky Way alone. Only a handful have been confirmed to date, however, and nearly all of these are ‘active’ – meaning they shine brightly in X-rays as they consume material from a nearby stellar companion, unlike dormant black holes which do not. 

Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i, one of the twin telescopes of the InternationalGemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have discovered the closest black hole to Earth, which the researchers have dubbed Gaia BH1. This dormant black hole is about 10 times more massive than the Sun and is located about 1600 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, making it three times closer to Earth than the previous record holder, an X-ray binary in the constellation of Monoceros. The new discovery was made possible by making exquisite observations of the motion of the black hole’s companion, a Sun-like star that orbits the black hole at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun. 

“Take the Solar System, put a black hole where the Sun is, and the Sun where the Earth is, and you get this system,” explained Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonianand the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and the lead author of the paper describing this discovery. “While there have been many claimed detections of systems like this, almost all these discoveries have subsequently been refuted. This is the first unambiguous detection of a Sun-like star in a wide orbit around a stellar-mass black hole in our Galaxy.”

Though there are likely millions of stellar-mass black holes roaming the Milky Way Galaxy, those few that have been detected were uncovered by their energetic interactions with a companion star. As material from a nearby star spirals in toward the black hole, it becomes superheated and generates powerful X-rays and jets of material. If a black hole is not actively feeding (i.e., it is dormant) it simply blends in with its surroundings.  

“I've been searching for dormant black holes for the last four years using a wide range of datasets and methods,” said El-Badry. “My previous attempts — as well as those of others — turned up a menagerie of binary systems that masquerade as black holes, but this is the first time the search has borne fruit.”

The team originally identified the system as potentially hosting a black hole by analyzing data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft. Gaia captured the minute irregularities in the star’s motion caused by the gravity of an unseen massive object. To explore the system in more detail, El-Badry and his team turned to the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph instrument on Gemini North, which measured the velocity of the companion star as it orbited the black hole and provided precise measurement of its orbital period. The Gemini follow-up observations were crucial to constraining the orbital motion and hence masses of the two components in the binary system, allowing the team to identify the central body as a black hole roughly 10 times as massive as our Sun.

“Our Gemini follow-up observations confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the binary contains a normal star and at least one dormant black hole,” elaborated El-Badry. “We could find no plausible astrophysical scenario that can explain the observed orbit of the system that doesn’t involve at least one black hole.”

The team relied not only on Gemini North’s superb observational capabilities but also on Gemini’s ability to provide data on a tight deadline, as the team had only a short window in which to perform their follow-up observations. 

“When we had the first indications that the system contained a black hole, we only had one week before the two objects were at the closest separation in their orbits. Measurements at this point are essential to make accurate mass estimates in a binary system,” said El-Badry. “Gemini’s ability to provide observations on a short timescale was critical to the project’s success. If we’d missed that narrow window, we would have had to wait another year.” 

Astronomers’ current models of the evolution of binary systems are hard-pressed to explain how the peculiar configuration of Gaia BH1 system could have arisen. Specifically, the progenitor star that later turned into the newly detected black hole would have been at least 20 times as massive as our Sun. This means it would have lived only a few million years. If both stars formed at the same time, this massive star would have quickly turned into a supergiant, puffing up and engulfing the other star before it had time to become a proper, hydrogen-burning, main-sequence star like our Sun. 

It is not at all clear how the solar-mass star could have survived that episode, ending up as an apparently normal star, as the observations of the black hole binary indicate. Theoretical models that do allow for survival all predict that the solar-mass star should have ended up on a much tighter orbit than what is actually observed.

This could indicate that there are important gaps in our understanding of how black holes form and evolve in binary systems, and also suggests the existence of an as-yet-unexplored population of dormant black holes in binaries. 

“It is interesting that this system is not easily accommodated by standard binary evolution models,” concluded El-Badry. “It poses many questions about how this binary system was formed, as well as how many of these dormant black holes there are out there.”

“As part of a network of space- and ground-based observatories, Gemini North has not only provided strong evidence for the nearest black hole to date but also the first pristine black hole system, uncluttered by the usual hot gas interacting with the black hole,” said NSF Gemini Program Officer Martin Still. “While this potentially augurs future discoveries of the predicted dormant black hole population in our Galaxy, the observations also leave a mystery to be solved — despite a shared history with its exotic neighbor, why is the companion star in this binary system so normal?”

Gemini North observations were made as part of a director’s discretionary time program (program id: GN-2022B-DD-202).

The International Gemini Observatory is operated by a partnership of six countries, including the United States through the National Science Foundation, Canada through the National Research Council of Canada, Chile through the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Brazil through the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações, Argentina through the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, and Korea through the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. These Participants and the University of Hawaii, which has regular access to Gemini, each maintain a “National Gemini Office” to support their local users.

More information

El-Badry, K., et al. (2022). “A Sun-like star orbiting a black hole” published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3140

NSF’s NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O'odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

Links

• Research paper
• Photos of Gemini North
• Videos of Gemini North

JOURNAL

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI

10.1093/mnras/stac3140 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

A Sun-like star orbiting a black hole

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Nov-2022

‘Click’ chemistry may help treat dogs with bone cancer, MU study finds

The scientific discovery, which recently earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry, may efficiently deliver radioactive cancer treatments to tumors while reducing side effects.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA

 

IMAGE: JEFFREY BRYAN view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

COLUMBIA, Mo. – In September, researchers from California and Denmark were awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of ‘click’ chemistry, a process in which molecules snap together like LEGO, making them a potentially more efficient transportation device in delivering pharmaceuticals to cancer tumors.

Now, in a recent study, a researcher at the University of Missouri has successfully shown for the first time how click chemistry can be used to more efficiently deliver drugs to treat tumors in large dogs with bone cancer – a process that had previously only been successful in small mice.

“If you want to attack a tumor using the immune system, an antibody is an extremely specific way to deliver a drug or radioactive payload to the tumor, but the problem with antibodies is they are huge molecules that circulate in the bloodstream for days or even weeks,” said Jeffrey Bryan, an associate professor in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and author on the study. “If you put a drug or radioactive molecule onto the antibody, you leave radioactivity circulating in the bloodstream for a long time, which can spread to and negatively impact organs, bone marrow and the liver while not getting as much dose to the specific tumor as you were hoping for.”

The goal with click chemistry is to maximize the delivery of therapeutic drugs specifically to the cancer tumor to increase effectiveness while minimizing the circulation of those drugs throughout the bloodstream and causing dangerous side effects.

From mice to man’s best friend

For years, many chemists assumed that while click chemistry has been successful in mice, the strategy would not work in large dogs or people because the size of the body might be too big for the two sides of therapy-delivering molecules to find each other and snap, or ‘click,’ together. Bryan collaborated with Brian Zeglis, an associate professor at Hunter College in New York who specializes in click chemistry, to conduct the first-ever successful ‘proof-of-concept’ study at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine. Using click chemistry, doses of radiopharmaceuticals were delivered specifically to the tumors in five dogs that weighed more than 100 pounds and had bone cancer.

“It is a huge step forward for the field to show that this worked in a human-sized body,” Bryan said. “Going forward, this may pave the way for click chemistry to be used to help humans with cancer in the future.”

Bryan has been researching veterinary and comparative oncology for nearly two decades. He said some dogs with one known bone tumor have additional bone tumors hiding in their body’s skeleton. An additional benefit of studies involving imaging scans and click chemistry is the ability to discover if additional cancer tumors are located in a dog’s skeleton and impacting their health.

“Osteosarcoma, a common form of bone cancer, impacts both dogs and people, and it causes severe pain, limping, swelling in the limbs, and treating the bone tumors with various radiation therapy and immune therapy approaches to take away the pain is something I am passionate about here at MU," Bryan said. "Everything we learn about treating these dogs can be translated to help humans down the road.”

A leader in treating cancer – for people and pets

The MU College of Veterinary Medicine, which earned more than $14 million in federal research funding last year from the National Institutes of Health, is the site of clinical trials for cancer that attract people and their pets from California, Florida, New York and states across the country.

“It is heartwarming to be a part of it because the patients’ families realize it is not just about better outcomes for their specific dog, but they are also contributing to better outcomes for other dogs in the future and hopefully better health outcomes for people as we translate these advances from the dogs to the human side,” Bryan said.

While this was a successful ‘proof-of-concept’ imaging study involving click chemistry, Bryan’s long-term goal is to develop a therapy using radiopharmaceuticals, potentially involving an antibody-targeting molecule, to treat dogs with bone cancer that may not be well enough for other treatments that involve surgery.

“This research is also an example of precision medicine, a key part of MU’s NextGen Precision Health initiative, because we are using the molecules associated with the specific tumor to deliver the therapeutic dose of treatment,” Bryan said. “We collaborate with the MU Research Reactor, the Molecular Imaging and Theranostics Center, and Washington University in St. Louis, so it is a team effort.”

In 2020, Bryan collaborated with ELIAS Animal Health to create a precision medicine approach – a vaccine from a dog’s own tumor – to target and kill cancer cells in dogs suffering from osteosarcoma. The success of the treatment in dogs led the Food and Drug Administration to grant a rare fast-track designation for ELIAS Animal Health’s parent organization, TVAX Biomedical, to study the ELIAS immunotherapy approach to treat glioblastoma multiforme, a cancerous brain tumor in humans.

“The last dog that participated in that study just died a few weeks ago, five years out from their original diagnosis of bone cancer, and the dog never relapsed with its cancer, so the dog was able to live the rest of its life cancer-free due to the immunotherapy,” Bryan said. “Our overall goal is to come up with different tools in our toolbox to effectively help treat dogs with cancer, and one day even people, too.”

“Pretargeted PET of Osteodestructive Lesions in Dogs” was published in Molecular Pharmaceutics. Funding was provided by Hunter College.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Pharmaceutics

DOI

10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.2c00220 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Pretargeted PET of Osteodestructive Lesions in Dogs

Fire in the Amazon is associated more with agricultural burning and deforestation than with drought

Conclusion came from a Brazilian study that analyzed active fire occurrences between 2003 and 2020 in the nine countries with Amazon Rainforest areas. Brazil accounted on average for 73% of the fires detected in the period.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: BRAZILIAN STUDY ANALYZED ACTIVE FIRE OCCURRENCES BETWEEN 2003 AND 2020 IN THE NINE COUNTRIES WITH AMAZON RAINFOREST AREAS. BRAZIL ACCOUNTED ON AVERAGE FOR 73% OF THE FIRES DETECTED IN THE PERIOD view more 

CREDIT: LIANA ANDERSON/CEMADEN

A Brazilian study shows that the number of fires detected in the entire Amazon region between 2003 and 2020 was influenced more by uncontrolled human use of fire than by drought. According to the researchers, burning of vegetation to prepare areas for pasture and deforestation rather than extreme water deficits were the main cause of fire in most years with large numbers of fires. 

On average, pasture and other agricultural land accounted for 32% of annual burned areas in the Amazon, followed by natural grasslands with 29% and old-growth forests with 16%. 

Of the nine countries with areas of Amazon Rainforest, Brazil and Bolivia accounted together for most of the fires detected in the region annually, with more than half and about a third respectively. 

The lion’s share of the Amazon is in Brazil (63%), but the lowland tropical rainforest biome also extends into Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, each with between 9% and 6.5% of the total area, which is 6.67 million square kilometers.  

An article on the study is published in a special issue of Global Ecology and Biogeography on the increasing threat posed to the world’s forests by fire. 

The authors are scientists affiliated with Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), National Disaster Surveillance and Early Warning Center (CEMADEN) and State University of Maranhão (UEMA).

The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon is on the rise again. In the first nine months of 2022, especially in August and September, it was the highest since 2010, when 102,409 fires were detected, according to INPE. At the same time, since 2019 deforestation in the biome has reached the highest levels since 2009, surpassing 10,000 square kilometers per year. The trend continues, judging by the statistics available from DETER, INPE’s deforestation alert platform. 

“The scientific literature on fire in the Amazon has tended to focus on the Brazilian portion of the biome. We extended the scope to the other countries in order to find out where fire is most critical and merits attention, particularly in light of the different land uses and types of plant cover. We concluded that fire is used in agriculture to renew the vegetation, mainly in pasturelands and especially in Brazil, but without proper fire management, heightening the risk of fire escaping into adjacent forest and causing wildfires,” said Marcus Vinicius de Freitas Silveira, a PhD candidate in INPE’s Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division (DIOTG) and first author of the article.

For Luiz Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de Aragão, head of DIOTG-INPE and last author of the article, the study innovates by taking all of Amazonia and almost 20 years of data as its scope. “By analyzing this long period, we were able to identify anomalies in the time series, such as 2020. The results show dissemination of the use of fire throughout the Amazon, both in clearing and burning the forest and for continuing management of pasturelands,” he said. 

Aragão is the leader of the Tropical Ecosystems and Environmental Sciences (TREES) Laboratory and a participant in the FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (RPGCC), which sponsored the study. Funding for the study was provided via three projects (16/02018-2, 20/16457-3 and 20/15230-5). 

As noted by Aragão, 2020 is an “anomaly in the time series”. According to the study, environmental control operations in the region weakened in 2020, which followed the infamous 2019 Amazon fire season and was also a period when the COVID-19 pandemic was surging. In 2020, the total burned area in the Amazon was the largest since 2010, and burned area per active fire was the second highest of the time series despite a much lower area with an anomalously acute water deficit in comparison to the 2015-16 mega-drought, the authors write.

Another important Brazilian biome, the Pantanal – the world’s largest wetlands, with an area of 250,000 square kilometers, parts of which are in Argentina and Paraguay – was also devastated by unprecedented burning in 2020. The water surface area fell 34% more than the annual average in 2020, according to an article published in July 2022. Besides Aragão, its authors include Liana Anderson, penultimate author of the article on fire in the Amazon. 

As in the tropical rainforest, the fires in the Pantanal were a consequence of the intensification of fire-related human activities, with 70% occurring on rural properties, 5% on Indigenous reserves and 10% in protected areas, according to the study, which was also supported by FAPESP.  

For Anderson, the main short-term action required to reduce the risk of forest fires in the Amazon is eradicating illegal deforestation in the region and tackling the land grab problem. “Alongside this, training and dissemination of fire-free land management techniques are crucial to minimize the growing risk of major fires. Both the increasingly fragmented landscape and the warmer climate with less rain lead to heightened flammability,” she said.

Fires increased by 18% between January and September compared with the first nine months of 2021 in Maranhão, a Brazilian state located in the transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado, the country’s second-largest biome and also threatened in various ways. “As noted in our article, recent fire activity in the region is closely linked to deforestation, which has increased because of the weakening of both federal and state environmental controls,” said Celso Silva-Junior, affiliated with the State University of Maranhão (UEMA) and second author of the article.

Impacts

Fire is one of the main types of disturbance responsible for degradation in the Amazon, with negative impacts on forest structure and dynamics, primarily because it impairs the forest’s capacity to capture carbon and releases stored carbon. 

Fire also damages the health of the people who live in the region by intensifying air pollution and increases hospitalizations due to respiratory disease. According to a report produced by the Health Policy Research Institute (IEPS) in partnership with the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and Human Rights Watch, burning associated with deforestation in the Amazon led to 2,195 hospitalizations for treatment of respiratory disease in 2019, with 49% involving people aged 60 or more, and 21% involving babies up to a year old.

Pollution by smoke from forest fires in the Amazon, added to the dirt already in the air in big cities as well as low cloud, was responsible for changing day into night in São Paulo on August 19, 2019, despite the distance of 2,700 km to Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state (more at: agencia.fapesp.br/31290/). 

Data

In the most recent Global Ecology and Biogeography article, the researchers describe their analysis of time series for 2003-2020 compiled from records of active fires and burned areas, cross-referencing these to annual data for land use and cover, measuring the areas with anomalous levels of fire, drought and deforestation for every year, and identifying the spatial distribution of these anomalies in 2020, all based on a 10 km x 10 km grid covering the entire Amazon region.

The results showed that Brazil alone accounted on average for 73% of annual active fire detections in the Amazon between 2003 and 2020, followed by Bolivia with 14.5% and Peru with 5.3%. 

When annual active fire detections in each Amazon region were divided by the total area of the region, the authors found that the highest density occurred in Bolivia, with an average of six active fires per 100 square kilometers per year, followed by Brazil with three.

In Brazil and Bolivia, active fires were more numerous in the 2000s and then fell, bottoming out in 2013-14 and rising again thereafter. 

Brazil contributed 56% of total annual burned area in the Amazon on average in the entire period, while Bolivia’s share was 33%. Venezuela and Colombia each accounted for 4%. Although Peru was the third-ranking region in numbers of fires, it contributed only 0.63% of total annual burned area on average.

Cropland and pasture, natural grasslands, old-growth forests and wetlands other than flooded forests were the types of land use and cover that burned the most in the entire Amazon during the period, accounting respectively for 32%, 29%, 16% and 13% of total annual burned area on average. 

Agricultural land also accounted for the largest proportion of total annual burned area in Brazil (48%) and Peru (51%). Old-growth forests burned most in Ecuador (76%), wetlands other than flooded forests in French Guiana (46.5%), and natural grasslands in the remaining Amazon regions (40% or more).

“Fire is used to prepare areas for crops or pasture, but fire is a hazard not only for the forest and its biodiversity but also for the sustainability of agriculture itself,” Aragão said. “The solution would be to develop strategic land use planning in all tiers of government and sectors of society, with training and assistance to use more advanced techniques.” 

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe

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JOURNAL

Global Ecology and Biogeography

DOI

10.1111/geb.13577 

ARTICLE TITLE

Amazon fires in the 21st century: The year of 2020 in evidence

Biden-Harris administration announces $1.5 billion from Inflation Reduction Act to strengthen America’s national laboratories

Upgrades to DOE’s National Laboratories solidify America’s global leadership in innovation, science, and clean energy

Grant and Award Announcement

DOE/US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden-Harris Administration, through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), today announced $1.5 billion from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to build and upgrade America’s national laboratories. The resources will upgrade scientific facilities, modernize infrastructure, and address deferred maintenance projects at DOE’s Office of Science-managed national laboratories, which are regional hubs for innovation, including clean energy technology that supports good-paying jobs and lower energy costs for families. This historic amount of support will help achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s vision to advance solutions-driven research and innovation conducted by America’s best and brightest scientists to tackle the nation’s greatest challenges and achieve the President’s ambitious climate goals.  

“America’s commitment to science and ingenuity shaped us into the world leaders we are today, and the continued success of our national laboratories will ensure we’re at the global forefront of innovation for generations to come,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, these world-class institutions will receive $1.5 billion—one of the largest ever investments in national laboratory infrastructure—to develop advanced energy technologies and groundbreaking tools like Argonne National Laboratory’s powerful new supercomputer, Aurora, that we need to advance new frontiers, like modeling climate change and developing vaccines.” 

“Our world-class system of national labs has enabled American innovation and made the U.S. the world leader in science and technology for generations,” said White House Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta. “The investments in national labs in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will help drive clean energy innovation, boost our economy, lower costs for families, create good-paying American jobs, and combat the climate crisis here at home and around the world.”  

Today, at DOE’s state-of-the-art Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, Secretary Granholm will join White House Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta, Office of Science and Technology Policy Deputy Director for Energy and Chief Strategist for the Energy Transition Sally Benson, and other senior White House and DOE officials. The visit underscores DOE’s swift action to allocate funds for science and research infrastructure provided by President Biden’s Agenda, and the critical role that DOE and the National Labs play in the newly released White House report on U.S. Innovation to Meet 2050 Climate Goals. The additional investments made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act will deliver critical benefits to the national laboratory complex that will spur and support climate science and innovation while also creating local jobs and helping attract and retain the highly skilled workforce needed to tackle the climate crisis. 

View the livestream event at Argonne National Laboratory at 2:00 pm CT: LINK 

DOE’s Office of Science is the nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences and the lead federal entity supporting fundamental research for clean energy. The Office of Science oversees the majority of DOE’s national laboratories, as well as various programs and facilities, which help achieve its mission of delivering major scientific discoveries, capabilities, and tools to transform the understanding of nature and to advance America’s energy, economic, and national security. However, decades of underfunding across DOE’s network of national laboratories have put the Office’s mission at risk and threatened America’s scientific and technological competitive edge over adversarial nations like China and Russia.   

To address this funding backlog, the Office of Science received an additional $1.55 billion in FY 2022 through the President’s Inflation Reduction Act to accelerate ongoing facility upgrade projects and national laboratory infrastructure projects. Projects include continuing construction of everything from cutting-edge electron colliders to the world’s fastest supercomputers, as well infrastructure upgrades for systems like fire alarms, electrical, and updated HVAC systems to ensure DOE’s national laboratories are modern, safe, and reliable.  

The Inflation Reduction Act will provide funding for:   

• Advanced scientific computing research facilities  
• Basic energy sciences projects  
• High energy physics construction and major items of equipment projects  
• Fusion energy science construction and major items of equipment projects  
• Nuclear physics construction and major items of equipment projects   
• Isotope research and development facilities
• Science laboratory infrastructure projects  

White House Factsheet: More information on the Inflation Reduction Act’s funding and a new White House Game Changers Initiative can be found here.  

More information on the funding announced today can be found here and a complete list of funding for each facility can be found here.  

Building on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to innovation, the funding announced today has already been distributed to selected projects to address a wide variety of long-term priorities and accelerate ongoing projects for critical facilities and other infrastructure. Together with President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act will position America to lead the world in the industries of the future and strengthen America’s ability to confront our biggest challenges, from climate change to quantum computing and everything in between.  

To learn more about DOE’s Office of Science and its priorities, click here.  

GSA applauds Medicare coverage of medically necessary oral and dental health therapies in physician fee schedule

Business Announcement

THE GERONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — commends the Biden-Harris Administration for finalizing regulatory policy that will have a direct and meaningful impact in the lives of many Medicare beneficiaries. The Medicare program is taking an important step towards much-needed coverage of medically necessary oral and dental care.

Specifically, the final Physician Fee Schedule for 2023 codifies Medicare coverage for dental services that are inextricably linked and substantially related and integral to organ transplant surgery, cardiac valve replacement, valvuloplasty procedures, and head and neck cancers. The final rule also creates the opportunity for further coverage expansion by establishing “a process to identify for [the Medicare program’s] consideration and review submissions of additional dental services that are inextricably linked and substantially related and integral to the clinical success of other covered medical services.” Finally, the rule codifies Medicare coverage for the wiring of teeth related to covered medical services, the reduction of jaw fractures, the extraction of teeth in preparation for radiation treatment of neoplastic disease, dental splints for covered treatment of certain medical conditions, and oral or dental examinations relating to renal transplant surgery.

GSA members contribute to the evidence base as it relates to the importance of oral health as an essential element of healthy aging. The Society has a long-standing commitment to oral health, which includes multiple collaborations over several years. Guided by its Oral Health Workgroup, GSA works to increase awareness of appropriate oral care and strengthen the impact that all members of health care and caregiver teams have to ensure good oral care for older people. Additionally, GSA’s Oral Health Interest Group is an interdisciplinary network that provides an active opportunity for persons interested in the issue of oral health to meet and exchange information and resources.

Starting in 2016, GSA has developed and actively disseminated several relevant publications. Among them are a white paper from an interprofessional convening that included more than 20 national aging and oral health organizations titled “Interprofessional Solutions for Improving Oral Health in Older Adults: Addressing Access Barriers, Creating Oral Health Champions,” and two issues of GSA’s What’s Hot newsletter, “Oral Health: An Essential Element of Healthy Aging” in 2017 and “Interrelationships Between Nutrition and Oral Health in Older Adults” in 2020.

GSA has been a strong advocate for the inclusion of coverage of medically necessary oral and dental care in Medicare and has worked as a member of the Consortium for Medically Necessary Oral Health Coverage to advocate for Medicare coverage of medically necessary oral and dental treatment. GSA has joined roughly 240 colleagues in signing the consortium’s Community Statement to urge Congress and the Administration to explore options for extending evidence-based coverage to all Medicare beneficiaries. As a member of the consortium, GSA will now turn to the important process of expanding coverage of medically necessary oral and dental services to all medical conditions for which such services are documented to be of clinical, fiscal, and human value.

GSA thanks the administration for recognizing these facts and taking this important step to extend Medicare coverage to dental services that are integral to the delivery of covered medical services. By broadening coverage of medically necessary dental services and opening an important opportunity for stakeholders to suggest clinical scenarios to which medically necessary oral and dental services should be extended in the future, the Physician Fee Schedule makes meaningful progress to improve the clinical success of covered medical services.

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The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,500+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA’s structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society.

One-in-three Canadians developed severe loneliness amidst the second wave of COVID-19

CityU scholar used the Machine Learning approach to detect risk factors of loneliness symptoms during the pandemic

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

 

IMAGE: “THE LONELINESS TREE” – MACHINE LEARNING PREDICTION (CLASSIFICATION AND REGRESSION TREE) FOR SEVERE LONELINESS AND ITS INTERSECTING RISK FACTORS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN CANADA (N = 3722), CPSS6-COVID (JANUARY 25–31, 2021). view more 

CREDIT: DR. SHEN (LAMSON) LIN. (SOURCE: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.1016/J.JAD.2022.08.131)

Pandemic-induced public health measures, such as social distancing and stay-at-home orders, while successful in decreasing the transmission of COVID-19, could exacerbate pre-existing mental health challenges, including loneliness, one of the major public health concerns in pre-pandemic times.

A new nationwide study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders estimated that in Canada, 34.7% per cent of the population, or just over one out of three Canadians, experienced severe loneliness in the second wave of COVID-19 infections, in January 2021. Moreover, this estimate of Canadian loneliness was substantially higher than statistics (14%–27%) reported elsewhere in the world during the pandemic.

“This concerning magnitude implies that during the pandemic lockdown, severe loneliness was ubiquitous in Canada,” says the sole author, Dr Lamson Lin Shen, an assistant professor in City University of Hong Kong’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, who conducting the research while finishing his Ph.D. degree at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. “This is probably due to the disruption in daily social activities, which normally help people cope with stress, as well as the intense social isolation caused by the lockdown measures implemented in many provinces of Canada.”

Based on the population-representative data from the Canadian Perspective Survey Series, collected from 25 to 31 January 2021 (during the larger second wave of the pandemic in Canada), the study adopted a machine-learning approach, Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modelling, to discover population patterns of loneliness symptoms measured by the standardised UCLA 3-item loneliness scale among 3,772 participants. The CART algorithm found that migrants who experienced pandemic-triggered job insecurity, such as business closures, layoffs or absence from work due to COVID-19 diagnosis, were the among the groups most at risk of severe loneliness.

“It is not surprising that immigrants were particularly vulnerable to isolation and loneliness in pre-pandemic times, because they were in a new environment, where they may have faced a variety of post-migration stressors, such as language obstacles, limited social networks, and a diminished sense of community belonging,” says Dr Lin. “What struck me the most is that my study discovered the double jeopardy of immigrant status and an unstable job situation during the COVID period.”

According Dr Lin’s findings, individuals who experienced job instability during the pandemic had double the odds of experiencing severe loneliness compared to people who were securely employed, after controlling for confounding variables, including sociodemographic factors. Among those experiencing insecure employment, the prevalence of loneliness was substantially higher among immigrant population than among Canadian-born residents (86.2 % vs. 48.7 %).

“The COVID-19 pandemic indeed amplified immigrants' susceptibility to loneliness,” says Dr. Lin. “This may be due to the fact that many migrants to Canada are over-represented in low-paid, low-skilled, unstable jobs, such as retail positions, cleaners, or cashiers, that require extensive interaction with the public, so they are at greater occupational risk of COVID-19 infection and consequential employment insecurity.”

In addition, Dr. Lin’s research identified several at-risk groups of loneliness that are consistent in ordinary times, including youth and adolescents, women, people with a low educational background, people living alone, people with a limited social circle (less than three persons), binge drinkers, and past-month cannabis users.

His study also demonstrated that, compared to Canadians who did not experience loneliness, severely lonely individuals in Canada were 1.7 times more likely to seek treatment from mental health professionals, 1.5 times more likely to seek informal support for mental health concerns, and 1.8 times more likely to have unmet mental health needs.

“My findings further shed light on the importance of building an equitable mental health care system in the pandemic response and recovery in Canada and other immigrant-receiving countries of the world,” said Dr Lin. “Primary care providers and mental health clinicians should assess loneliness symptoms in their routine patient examinations. At the community level, social care organisations should develop early prevention and intervention programs targeting high-risk groups with a greater burden of loneliness, especially for immigrant and marginalised populations.”

Paper: Lin, S. (2022). The “loneliness epidemic”, intersecting risk factors and relations to mental health help-seeking: A population-based study during COVID-19 lockdown in Canada. Journal of Affective Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.08.131

https://www.cityu.edu.hk/research/stories/2022/11/03/cityu-scholar-used-machine-learning-approach-detect-risk-factors-loneliness-symptoms-during-pandemic

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JOURNAL

Journal of Affective Disorders

DOI

10.1016/j.jad.2022.08.131 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The “loneliness epidemic”, intersecting risk factors and relations to mental health help-seeking: A population-based study during the COVID-19 lockdown in Canada

Mobile Tuareg artisans in Niger

Frobenius Research Promotion Prize goes to Dr. des Valerie Nur

Grant and Award Announcement

GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT

 

IMAGE: A BLACKSMITH IN HIS WORKSHOP IN TIMIA SURROUNDED BY NEIGHBORS AND CHILDREN. (TIMIA, 2013) (PHOTO: VALERIE NUR) view more 

CREDIT: (PHOTO: VALERIE NUR)

Each year, the Frobenius Institute honors excellent ethnological dissertations in German-speaking countries with the Frobenius Research Promotion Prize, endowed with 3000 euros. This year the prize went to Valerie Nur for her doctoral thesis "Handwerkliche Arbeit als soziale Praxis. Eine ethnologische Studie über die handwerklichen Praktiken der endogamen Handwerkergruppe der inadan Tuareg des Aïr in Niger" (Craft as social practice. An anthropological study of the craft practices of the endogamous artisan group of the inadan Tuareg of the Aïr in Niger).  The thesis was supervised by Professor Gerd Spittler and submitted to the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies in Cultural Anthropology. It is based on a field study in the course of which Valerie Nur spent a total of twenty months with the Inadan (Tuareg), who have received little attention in research to date, at various locations in the Aïr mountains as well as in the capital Niamey (Niger).

Together with the Inadan, Valerie Nur reflected on craft work and was able to gain intensive experience with craft practice during her field study. In her work, she describes the everyday handicrafts of the men and women, such as leather work, the procurement process itself, the making and reshaping of tools, and the recurring changes that occur in craft practice. Moreover, Valerie Nur explains how intricately this work is integrated into the daily family life of the mobile Inadan, who grow up with the craft and are connected by kinship over hundreds of kilometers. Since the finished products have a spiritual value beyond their market value, the craft is of special importance for the social relations of the Inadan beyond these family ties.

Valeria Nur’s study also contributes to migration research; after all, mobile craftsmen are also migrant workers, capable of working anywhere and of expanding their skills. Valerie Nur's dissertation convinced the committee with its underlying intensive and self-reflective ethnographic research as well as with the excellent linguistic presentation of the results.

A craftsman soaks wood for a camel saddle. (Niamey, 2014) (Photo: Valerie Nur)

Two craftsmen with shouldered axes on their way to a customer. (Mont Bagzan 2015) 

(Photo: Valerie Nur)

Images for download: https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/127688816

Captions:

Image 1: A blacksmith in his workshop in Timia surrounded by neighbors and children. (Timia, 2013) (Photo: Valerie Nur)

Image 2: A craftsman soaks wood for a camel saddle. (Niamey, 2014) (Photo: Valerie Nur)

Image 3: Two craftsmen with shouldered axes on their way to a customer. (Mont Bagzan 2015) (Photo: Valerie Nur)

Further information
Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology

at Goethe University

Dr. Katja Geisenhainer

Tel: +49 (0)69 798-33058

geisenhainer@em.uni-frankfurt.de;

 

Editor: Dr. Anke Sauter, Science Editor, PR & Communication Office, Tel: +49 (0) 69 798-13066, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, sauter@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de

Death and end-of-life care in emergency departments

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: Researchers found in this analysis of nationally representative health record data that emergency department (ED) deaths accounted for 11.3% of total deaths from 2010 to 2019, and 33.2% of all decedents nationally visited the ED within one month of their death. These deaths were more common during or after ED visits by patients who were older and those with more comorbidities. These findings suggest emergency medicine practitioners must be able to identify patients for whom end-of-life care is necessary or preferred and have the resources necessary to delivery this care.

Authors: Jonathan Elmer, M.D., M.S., of the University of Pittsburgh, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ 

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.40399)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

 time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.40399?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=110422

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open